


in jerusalem next year

by ThatWeirdGuyInTheBushes



Series: your city gave me asthma [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Freedom, Friendship, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Insomnia, Los Angeles, Nonbinary Character, POV Second Person, Running Away, Trans Male Character, Underage Drinking, a lot of mountain goats songs because im bisexual and traumatized, vent - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-06
Updated: 2020-10-06
Packaged: 2021-03-08 09:28:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26849707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatWeirdGuyInTheBushes/pseuds/ThatWeirdGuyInTheBushes
Summary: you rip off the chains of home with your teeth, making a break for the hills.-two kids walk into a car, on their way to california.
Series: your city gave me asthma [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1970317
Comments: 4
Kudos: 11





	in jerusalem next year

**Author's Note:**

> i should be working on something else but fuck that the mountain goats were calling me
> 
> (title is from their song This Year)

You grab the wheel tight enough to turn your knuckles white. You’ve never liked cars, never liked driving, and you’ve gotten better since you were a kid but the weight of it still doesn’t sit well.

Ollie is on the passenger side. That’s a nerve-wracking and yet calming thought. You’re holding their life in your hands right now. But they’re here. They’re still here.

You’re almost in California. You’ve been sleeping in the car for two days, uncomfortable and cramping but so close to being free. You blast The Mountain Goats through the car’s speakers, spitting the lyrics, tasting the air. The words are big enough to choke on and sharp enough to cut your tongue in half but they fit better in your throat than any small word ever has.

You pull in to a gas station and you run a hand over your chest. Flat. Flat and perfect, two slowly fading scars hiding beneath your white shirt (The white shirt you can finally wear). You’re looking in the drivers’ side mirror well Ollie fills up the gas tank, and it reminds you that you need shaving cream. You run across the street and you buy shaving cream. You buy fucking shaving cream.

You can’t help the grin pulling across your face at that. The cashier calls you sir.

It’s only eight in the morning, which means you’ll be driving for a long while yet. Ollie will take over at two. You’re fine with it, but you could still use more energy. You buy a five-hour energy at the gas station and then finally return to the car.

You’re at the bottom of Oregon now, about to get into Cali. It won’t be long till you’re finally where you need to be.

You two have got the whole world ahead of you.

-

You spend a while more sleeping in your car. You both get jobs to go along with your side hustles. Ollie is working part-time since they make more money selling on Etsy than you do with your writing commissions. You finally get started as an assistant and you’re only fetching coffee right now but you’ll be climbing up through the ranks soon. You’re still writing the script for your first short, and you can only hope it will be a success.

Finally, you get an apartment. It’s shitty and small, a one-bedroom with a funky shower that only gives you twenty minutes of hot water a day, but it’s everything you’ve ever wanted because it’s yours.

The first night there, with all of your stuff still unpacked, you and Ollie use a fake ID and buy a bottle of Jack Daniels Whiskey. You get drunk and watch bad movies and every shot you down tastes a bit like a queer slur, a bit like history. You smell it and you can almost see your stepfather in your mother's kitchen, throwing you to the ground and drinking from his bottle. But only almost.

He doesn’t know your name anymore. He doesn’t know you. The next time he sees you will be from the afterlife, watching as you piss on his headstone. He can’t hurt you here, he can’t stop you from growing bigger and better and crushing him beneath your fucking boot.

You take another shot and realize that this is reclamation. This is taking back something stolen. You’re in a small apartment in California with your best friend, watching movies on your laptop and drinking liquid fear, and you realize that this is returning.

You fall asleep on the floor, in each other’s arms, drunk off your asses and undeniably, irrevocably, alive.

-

You get a bunk bed and a coffee machine. You both stay up too late but you're getting better. You were right about moving up through the ranks.

There’s an old man downstairs who calls you son and pays you to help him move in. There’s a waitress at a local diner who you chat with sometimes. She comes out and sits by you on the bench whenever she takes her smoke break. It’s a little moment of crossing paths. You don’t say anything, because you’re writing and she’s listening to music, but you like the quiet serenity of it all.

You and Ollie finally make enough money to buy a small tv and an old ratty couch. You chat with your friends every day and call each other at night, and it’s not the same as having them there but it works. You live in a world of coffee and quick snacks, caught in between the crushing work hours.

You call your dad, then your brother. You stare at the phone screen, at the name at the top, your heart pounding. Your mom hasn’t texted you since you left, but you’re scared of what she might say when she decides to.

On instinct, you start to swallow down the words you want to say. But they’re only halfway down your throat before you’ve started playing The Mountain Goats, and you cough them up again.

You’ve made something here, you think. You’ve done well. But making a new life isn’t just about building, isn’t just about reclamation. Sometimes you’ve got to let things go. Sometimes the only thing you need to reclaim is a blank slate.

You turn on This Year, blasting it through your headphones and singing along as you hold your finger down on the block button.

And finally, for the first time in your life, you are fully taken back, fully built again, fully, gloriously, unapologetically free.

**Author's Note:**

> the main character is just me there isn't anything else to it.
> 
> comment to clear my crops and water my skin.


End file.
